Commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 5,448,623, issued Sep. 5, 1995, entitled "Satellite Telecommunications System Using Network Coordinating Gateways Operative with a Terrestrial Communication System", by R. A. Wiedeman and P. A. Monte, describes a wireless telephone system capable of servicing a roaming wireless telephone user. The system includes a satellite communications system having at least one and preferably a constellation of orbiting satellites; at least one terrestrial-based gateway having access to a database of users; at least one network coordinating gateway within at least one satellite service area; a single network control center; and a plurality of terrestrial communications links. A terrestrial data network links together the terrestrial-based components of the system, and is used for communicating, by example, system control and status information amongst the terrestrial-based components.
The system operates by effecting communication between a terrestrial wireless telephone end user transceiver and a terrestrial communications link via a relay through a single satellite or a succession of single relay satellites. The relay satellite may be in motion relative to the end user transceiver and the terrestrial communications link. The terrestrial-based gateway cooperates with the network database to effect hand-off from a first orbiting satellite to a second orbiting satellite. The satellites orbiting near the earth need only translate signals from the gateways and from the users to the gateways, without satellite-based control. That is, the satellites function to receive a ground-originated transmission from a gateway of a user transceiver, frequency translate the received transmission, and transmit to the frequency translated transmission back to the ground.